If blessedness is a choice,
who chooses to be accursed?
What need for God,
since we bless ourselves;
by the strength of our arms,
and the cunning of our wits;
but that they remain
strong and sharp even with age,
and that our store houses,
are not burned down or robbed,
and that Evil be kept far from us.
Job was blessed of God.
Evil touched him to his bones,
His storehouses burnt down,
His sons and daughters massacred.
Wishing death rather than life,
but enough life and fear remain,
to know torment, pain and suffering,
and to question agonizingly without answers;
accused falsely by unwise friends,
who spoke the wind as if its wisdom;
and to live days without end in sight.
We bless ourselves
as we count blessings:
Beholden to the flesh,
its desires and fears.
As the blind,
content not to fall,
but destined to fly
and see the unseen
and be the unimaginable.
